


Future

by redjaded (timeheist)



Category: Dark Heresy, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k - Freeform - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 03:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/redjaded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Always did wonder where you disappeared to. Off the edge of the map.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future

**Author's Note:**

> It was going to be an older Briar in this story but then I realised that I do want to do something interesting with Briar at some point which means I can’t use her for a little fun here. I can’t vouch for how far after most of my Dark Heresy stories involving these characters this story is, but this is set quite a bit after, with a very different Santiago indeed, from javieralcover’s Sons Of The Spider. Why I chose this particular prompt for the two of them isn’t quite as interesting as the others, but simply because Santiago’s life generally drives me up the blooming wall. The prompts were “Santiago” and “Future”. The POV of this one wound up being Deb because Santiago is too mysterious to really let me in his head to write from his angle.

“Santiago. You look different. Have you put on weight?”

Deb’s eyes would have been wide in surprise if he was entirely sober. Or not quite so high, for that matter. His lho-stick was clasped between his teeth, and his hip flask tied to his side, just below his carapace armour and second only to his handcannon and shock baton. The hip flask was empty, and so was the gun, but both could be remedied as soon as he got back to the inn, which was where he had been on his way to when he’d walked almost straight into a large, black, wall-like apparition of a man and very nearly landed on his arse. Debelius had cracked his neck and stretched his arms, catching his lho-stick just before it fell, and had an angry retort on his lips, but then he’d gotten a good look at the clumsy bastard walking in the rain and not looking where he was going.

He’d not seen Santiago in… Emperor, how long had it been? He wasn’t even sure anymore. One job for the Inquisition had blended into one job for the Inquisition, had blended into another job for the Inquisition, and then a few jobs for another Inquisitor during which he had changed hands and people had come and people had gone and life was just life. It just was. Shoot a heretic here, gut an elder there, keep a secret every bloody day. Sometimes he longed for the Arbitrators, who at least had a pretty simple lot day in day out and were just that little bit less likely to get shot at. But there was no life back for him on Dorn IV and he didn’t have a bad future waiting for him with the Holy Ordos. And so he would stick with that.

It had taken him a few seconds to work exactly why the man in front of him looked familiar because to be frank… He frakking didn’t. A few inches taller, a few inches broader, and dressed in armoured robes of black instead of plain robes of white. And then there was the simple matter of the Imperial rosette hanging around his neck that looked much grander than his old one had been and the frakking augmetic eye that glinted red and eerie in the dark alleyways of whatever frakking planet they were on… Deb couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d always found something a little bit off about Santiago and this chance meeting wasn’t changing that in the slightest…

Santiago didn’t say a word. Figured. He barely even seemed to recognize Deb, smoothing down his clothes and pushing strands of hair that were already soaked to his forehead out of the line of his glowing eye. Deb – who was supposed to be meeting up with everyone else right about now, but screw it, this was more interesting – folded his arms across his chest and doused his lho-stick, dropping it to the pebbled ground and stamping it under one boot. He grinned broadly, as though he was greeting an old friend and not a one-time colleague.

“Don’t be like that. Think of all the fun we had together…” Santiago didn’t even blink, in fact he looked over Deb’s shoulder like he was expecting something to happen. Deb turned around, paranoid, and seeing nothing as he squinted into the darkness shrugged and turned back to face the gigantic probably-not-an-adept-anymore with a slight suspicious frown. “Always did wonder where you disappeared to. Off the edge of the map.”

There was a long pause. Santiago cracked his neck and tucked his rosette back into the folds of his robes, clasping his hands behind his back with unnatural calm. One look into his one good eye and Deb felt even more queasy than he usually did around him. Something had changed…

“I was busy.”

“Aye. You always were.” Deb’s gaze narrowed further for just a second before he shrugged, grinning and reaching up to awkwardly – uncomfortably – clap Santiago across the shoulders. “Worried Briar sick, you know. Never got why she was like that with you.” Deb dragged his teeth across his bottom lip thoughtfully, turning up his collar against the splashing rain. “Everything does, though. Worry here, I mean.” When Santiago offered neither confirmation nor explanation, he continued. “Smoking, drinking, having fun…”

“She did her job.”

“Aye, there was that… Nervous twitch about it too.” Deb nodded to the pocket that the rosette had disappeared into. “Wonder what she’d have to say about that.”

“She doesn’t need to know.”

Debelius raised his hands in surrender, then shoved them deep into his pocket with a petulant air. “Not like I could tell her anyway. Been busy myself, you know.” The silence dragged on again until Debelius could take it no longer. He reached for the last few drops in his hip flask, wiping water from his eyes and turned to look over his shoulder as the street lamps flickered and died. He glanced at the sky, shielding his eyes, and stepping from foot to foot. Might as well head back to the inn. Dry out and warm up. “So, what do you say to catching up over-“

Deb blinked, looked down every road at the crossroads, and then rolled his eyes with an exasperated groan. Santiago was gone. When he’d gotten that good at sneaking about, Deb supposed he would never know.


End file.
